CNBC: Slideshow on Famous Celebrity Scams and Hoaxes

Some slideshow while taking a lunchbreak watching the sliding stock market.

The slides include:

1) Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme

2) 3 celebrities scamed by 2 Wall Street brokerages in 1983

3) In 2009, a German trying to extort model Cindy Crawford and her husband using a photo showing their daughter bound and gagged (fake kidnap). In fact, the daughter was not kidnapped and this photo was taken by the nanny during a “police and thief” game.

4) Celebrities such as Robert DeNiro lost millions of dollars to the scammer, Lawrence Salander, who took the high-priced art pieces from the celebrities (under consignment) and sold them to settle his own personal debt. Tennis great John McEnroe also claims Salander duped him out of $2 million.

5) In Britain, more than 600 people, including singer and actor Jerome Flynn, found out they’d been duped to the tune of £80 million in a “Ponzi” scheme in August, 2009.

6) In 1972, author Clifford Irving created a media sensation when he claimed he co-wrote an authorized autobiography of Howard Hughes. Hughes was such a reclusive figure that he did not immediately refute Irving’s claim, which led many people to believe the book was genuine.

7) In January 2010, actor Kiefer Sutherland found out he’d been roped into an alleged cattle selling scam that netted more than a million dollars. This was widely report on the web, and there is also a reference from our site.

8) In Apr 2009, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Oprah Winfrey Show warned Internet users should not be confused by an e-mail scam disguised as an Oprah contest, purportedly giving away $1 million. The FBI said the scam asked for contact information, and also asked recipients to buy a plane ticket in exchange for a promised seat to Winfrey’s popular Chicago-based talk show and a chance to win $1 million.